


Summer, summer

by London_Fog



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1479733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/London_Fog/pseuds/London_Fog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five minutes later, they shared a bag of candy between them as they walked. The bag was nestled in the basket of Hinata’s bicycle, and the sweets were every bit as lovely as they imagined it to be. Kageyama wondered if Hinata walked past the sweet shop with such pining in his eyes everyday, and was distracted by the way Hinata sucked on his fingers to get the sugar dust out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer, summer

**Author's Note:**

> So I got this stupid idea that they’ll be the sort to walk one another home, and end up going up and down that same distance so many times it ends up a date. And that’s how dumb butt 1 and dumb butt 2 got their first date. Really sloppy proof-reading on this one because the letters are all starting to dance, but I want to push it out before I went to bed. Can be read as a prequel to Five Plus One if you want to.

“I told you it would be closed.” Kageyama crossed his arms, displeased.

They stood by the main doors of the hall, staring at the red, angry words in bold. ‘ _CLOSED FOR CLEANING_ ’.

Hinata deflated visibly, and Kageyama wondered what Hinata was hoping for. Just the previous day, Daichi had sent a mass text to the team that because of washing, practice for today would be cancelled. Hinata had been stubborn, hoping for a miracle of some sort, and going so far as to bring all of his equipment along.

Kageyama shook his head once, and then turned to walk away. “Come on, let’s go.”

Hinata made some incoherent noise of displeasure, then leapt up to spy on the hall from the windows, his feet pressed to the walls as his fingers gripped the window railings for support. Whenever he did that, Kageyama thought he looked like a petulant five year old. “I wanna go in.” He whined, and Kageyama snorted. Typical Hinata behaviour.

Kageyama moved to stand beside Hinata, standing on tip toes to peek into the hall as well. There were three men inside, washing the floors with high powered water hoses, or the like. He resisted the urge to pluck Hinata off from where he was, and so, turned away again. “I’m going to leave you here,” He threatened warningly, though he doubted that it would work.

Surprisingly, Hinata jumped off from where he was, and sidled up to Kageyama’s side. “Nah, nah, ok, let’s go then.”

Kageyama looked at Hinata for a moment, questions he couldn’t voice on the tip of his tongue, for they were neither structured nor comprehensible. “Home?”

“Yep.”

They walked around the school’s building to get to the main entrance, stopping by the bicycle lots for Hinata to retrieve his bike. It was instantly recognisable, even though it was a boring dull grey and entirely nondescript, and had no business being distinguishable from the tens of hundreds of bicycles that were chained to their respective stands. Kageyama watched Hinata struggle with the bicycle for a bit, weaving through the rows with difficulty.

He snickered, and Hinata shot him a look that only caused him to laugh harder. Hinata huffed when he finally got the bicycle out, as if telling Kageyama to try next time. He shrugged, and Hinata followed after him, bicycle in tow by his side.

“Bike looks old.” He commented as they headed out, past the school gates and a group of chattering girls. The weather is warm this time of the year, and as Hinata walked slightly ahead of him, Kageyama had slight difficulty tearing his eyes from the back of Hinata’s sweat-stained shirt that clung to his skin.

“Mm, yeah.” When Hinata nodded, his hair bounced as his head went. “I’ve had it for two years now. Have you ever cycled, Kageyama? It’s a really nice feeling, isn’t it? Like, woosh!”

Kageyama shrugged. “I’ve never cycled.”

Hinata whipped around to stare at Kageyama, wide-eyed. “Whaaat!? But you know how to cycle, right?” Hinata’s eyes were bright amber, and Kageyama catalogues the shape of his eyes and the lines of his eyebrows. He’s not actually sure if he knows, so he shrugged again, noncommittally.

“I suppose.”

“Oh. Okay then.” Hinata seemed to withdraw back a little. “’Cause I was thinking, I could teach you. If you didn’t know. But you know. So that’s okay.” Hinata was doing that thing where he bounced a little too high on his feet to be natural.

Hinata? Teach him? The notion of it seemed so absurd that Kageyama wanted to snort, but for some reason, he doesn’t want to close the door that entirely, and especially not when Hinata seemed really weird when he asked him about it. Almost disappointed, but it’s not like there was anything to be disappointed about, right? Instead, he decides to keep watching that door, just in case. Maybe he’s greedy like that. “I don’t remember the last time I cycled, so I might have forgotten.”

Hinata laughed. “Okay! We’ll go after we win the nationals, okay?”

Kageyama agrees.

They take a short cut through the community park, and there’s the soft scent of peonies when they passed the flower beds. Hinata talked animatedly about Nishinoya’s serve the other day, and the hand that wasn’t pushing the bike along was punching the air animatedly as he spoke.

“And it’s like wham! Then the ball is all, gyuuurh! And then Asahi-san smacks it up, like, booong! You know?”

It’s funny, but he’s getting really good at deciphering Hinata-language, so he nodded. 

“Like, wowww, I wanna do a serve like that too.”

“Dumbass,” He scoffed, but with none of his usual scorn. “You need to practice your normal serve first.”

“I know!” Hinata huffed, “I know! But I feel like I want to get there quickly too.” Kageyama’s been in that position, and that feeling of wanting to get there, wherever there was, as fast as possible, was something he knew all too well. “Maybe we can practice in the park. There’s no one around.” Hinata looked around, and the only other around were a young couple from their school and a small group of elderly men playing shougi under a pavilion.

“We don’t even have a ball.”

“Oh yeah…”

Kageyama hated the way disappointment painted itself on Hinata’s face, so, scratching his cheek, he offered an alternative. “We can do that next week, if you want to play in the park that badly.”

“It’s not playing, it’s training! Training!” Hinata asserted, but the bounce in his step is a lot more cheerful and natural, so Kageyama let that go. He hasn’t used the ball in his house for a while, and he made a mental note to dig out the air pump from wherever it was.

Kageyama’s house was only a fifteen minutes’ walk away from school, and he thought about how someone once said something about how time passed a lot faster when they were having fun. He doesn’t consider this to be any definition of fun, ever, but the last fifteen minutes had passed far too quickly for his liking. They stood by his front gates for a moment, Hinata looking at him inquisitively.

“Er, that’s your house, right?”

Kageyama made a sound, because he’s not sure what to say. Because he doesn’t want go in, he doesn’t want to part from Hinata, and he doesn’t want to say bye. Not now, in any case.

“I’ll walk you home.”

Hinata looked down the end of the street, opposite from where they had walked from. He scratched his head, then ran his hand through his short hair, and then ran it through again. Kageyama watched how the slightly damp strands went through his fingers, and wondered briefly how they would feel like under his own.

“My house is a thirty minutes’ walk from here.” Hinata said, and less than confusion, or incredulity, Kageyama thought he found a bit of hesitation and hope in there. He doesn’t like the way hesitation clung to Hinata either, so he shrugged. Thirty minutes sounded like a good thing anyway, so he nodded.

“Sure.”

Hinata beamed.

That, Kageyama liked.

* * *

Kageyama found himself memorising every detail to Hinata’s home. Hinata continued to chatter about so-and-so’s move the other day, and Kageyama listened to his cheery voice distractedly, as he made note of the blue periwinkles that grew quietly near the left turn they made after the bus stop, the house with the green roof, and the street with a line of vending machines so long that Kageyama wanted to detour there, just to see if they all sold the same thing.

There’s a sweet shop en route, and Hinata’s pace slowed down slightly as they approached. The window had a huge display of rows of jars filled with colourfully wrapped candies, and Kageyama followed Hinata’s eyes to a jar of orange ones.

“And then, and then, when Suga hit, it was like, a, hmm, er, a bang. Yeah, like that.”

“Do you want some?” Kageyama stared at the orange jar. They were round and fat, and if they tasted as good as they looked, he thought that there would be the sure taste of sweet, summer oranges.

“Erm, no.” Hinata said, but Kageyama could tell he was practically drooling. The purple ones beside the orange ones looked great too.

“Well, _I_ want some.”

Five minutes later, they shared a bag of candy between them as they walked. The bag was nestled in the basket of Hinata’s bicycle, and the sweets were every bit as lovely as they imagined it to be. Kageyama wondered if Hinata walked past the sweet shop with such pining in his eyes everyday, and was distracted by the way Hinata sucked on his fingers to get the sugar dust out.

Conversation flowed a little slower – Hinata was entirely too excited about trying out every flavour they got at the shop, and then trying them again, because he’s already forgotten how they tasted, and Kageyama was exactly the same. Hinata told Kageyama about all the best sweets he had ever eaten, such as this French brand he bought at a departmental store years ago, some un-named shop when he went on holiday to Hokkaido, and his mother’s candy apples whose taste were unbeatable.

“It’s like, sweet, and a bit sour, and it’s really tangy like, woah, and no one else makes it that good! No one! I’ll ask her to make some for you next time. Candy grapes too, and strawberries! And tangerines, if they’re in season.”

Kageyama smiled a little bit, and looked forward to eating the same sweets Hinata grew up eating.

And like the route to his house, they arrived at Hinata’s house far earlier than he would have liked. Hinata’s house was a clean white-wash, with blue glass windows and a neat garden in front of the porch. They found themselves back at where they originally were, staring at one another, as if in deep consideration of some thought that couldn’t even form itself into coherence.

“Uhm.” Hinata began, almost forlornly, and Kageyama looked at the route they came from.

“Uhm, wait,” Hinata said again, and then hiked his bicycle into his house before coming out, the candy bag in his hand. “Here. Uh. Can I walk you home? As thanks for the sweets?”

He had the same face as when he told Kageyama his house was thirty minutes away, and it just wasn’t in his nature to _not_ oblige Hinata.

“Sure.”

“Great!”

Hinata bounced ahead, and Kageyama followed after.

The conversation veered towards cycling again. “Have you been to Hitami Park? It’s so pretty! There’s a waterfall there and everything, so after you cycle around the mountains you can go for a swim in the lake, and it’s so nice and cooling, even when you go in the summer.”

Kageyama thought about it. “Would you have joined some kind of cycling club if you didn’t play volleyball?”

“Eh? Nah. I don’t know. Maybe?” Hinata crumpled the paper bag as he chewed the last of the sweets in it. “It’s not something I really think about, since I love volleyball and all.”

Well, that made sense. Kageyama wondered what it would be like if Hinata never played volleyball.

Lonely, probably.

“I see. Anyway, Hitami Park is the furthest you’ve cycled to, right? I bet I could ride all the way to Ayari Town.”

“Whaaat, you’re definitely kidding, there’s no way anyone can do that, right?”

“What, you can’t?”

“Eh!” Hinata pouted. “You can’t say that! I haven’t tried, that’s all! I’ll probably make it there before you! I mean definitely! Dumbass.”

“Excuse me? You’re clearly the dumbass here, aren’t you!? How dare you call me a dumbass, do you think you’re being cute, huh?” Kageyama dragged Hinata into his arms and ran his knuckle on Hinata’s head. Hinata’s hair, unsurprisingly, was as soft as he imagined it to be.

“Ow ow ow lemme go Kageyama! You’re a jerk, you know?”

“Oh, so I’m a jerk now?”

Hinata laughed, and Kageyama loosened his hold on the shorter boy. “You’re a lot of things, Kageyama.” They passed the blue periwrinkles, and Kageyama’s hand still lingered on Hinata’s back. There’s a comforting warmth from that contact, one that he’s not sure if radiated by Hinata, or from something else altogether (something potentially fuzzily welcoming and deliriously happy), but since Hinata didn’t pull away from his hand, Kageyama didn’t let go either.

Hinata launched into a story about one of the field trips he went on when he was in middle school. Kageyama listened to him describe the deers in Nara park, and how he accidentally caused one to run after him. The young fawn probably thought Hinata wanted to play with her, and Kageyama wouldn’t have suspected anything that wasn’t that.

They reached Kageyama’s gates again, and it was nearly five.

They looked at one another again, with Hinata watching him intently. Kageyama didn’t know how to word this without sounding like a complete moron, so he decided to go for the direct approach.

“Hey, I’ll walk you home from here.” He justified it as being a lot more preferable to reading five chapters of Genji Monogatari or doing maths problems (it is, but he’d also skip dinner to walk Hinata home).

“Okay!” Hinata cheered, and they went up the street they just came from again.

This time, Kageyama took the opportunity to walk along the path with the long line of vending machines. Most of them sold an assortment of drinks, with Coca Cola and Pocari Sweat being the most common. Other machines sold some brand of cigarettes, none of which Kageyama ever cared enough to remember, and hence recognise, and even a few selling small packets of snacks.

Hinata paid them little attention, instead pointing out the fat grey cat that purred in front one of the machines.

“It’s Ikoi!”  Hinata said excitedly, and then went up to pat its head.

“Ikoi?”

“Yeah! She’s been here since forever. And she really likes milk too, look,” Hinata pressed for a box of milk from the machine that Ikoi was sitting in front of, and then, carefully, with a dexterity in his fingers Kageyama rarely saw, opened the cardboard box and folded it open so that Ikoi could drink from it.

The grey cat purred again, and then lapped the milk up. They watched the cat for a bit, Hinata egging him on to touch it.

“Come on Kageyama, pet the cat.” Kageyama didn’t want to, because no one knew where strays ever wandered to, and it was likely incredibly dirty. So he reached over to pat Hinata on the head instead.

Hinata stared at him, expression undecipherable, before bursting into laughter, and then pulling Kageyama up by the hand that Kageyama had on his head. “Come on, let’s go, geez.”

This time, it’s Hinata that has Kageyama’s hand in his, so Kageyama lets Hinata tug him along and down the street. Holding hands like this as they walked down the street was something Kageyama didn’t even know he wanted, and it’s really weird for the two of them to be doing this, but it was so comforting and satisfying that he didn’t want to let go. He supposed Hinata must have felt the same, and though his hands were loose in Hinata’s, it was nice.

The street with the vending machine ends up leading them into a small town square, with streets of little shops lining its perimeter. Their stomachs both growled as they passed a noodle shop, the scent of ramen and pork-bone stew heavy in the air.

Hinata laughed again, “I’m getting hungry, are you?”

“Well, it’s dinner time, so, do you…?”

“Yes! Here?”

“Sure.” 

They ducked under the flaps of the noodle’s shop’s doorway, and found a table near the window. It’s nice and quiet, though his hand feels cold when Hinata released it to take his seat. They waited idly, with Hinata talking about trying basketball once and how it just didn’t compare to volleyball.

“Do you only play sports in your free time?”

“Nope! There’s a PS3 at home, so I play on it sometimes. I don’t have a lot of games though. I was going to play Sengoku Basara last year, but I got caught up in volleyball practice.”

“Sengoku Basara’s pretty good.”

“Ehh, so Kageyama plays video games too?”

Kageyama wasn’t about to confess the whole collection of hack-and-slash video games he had on his shelves, but Hinata had offered the whole thing with his mother’s candied fruits, so Kageyama thought he ought to put something on the table too. “Yeah, I have some pretty good ones. You can come over and play them if you want to,” He paused, embarrassed, so he added, “But only after you master your basic serves and receives! Got it!?”

“I’ll master them tomorrow.” Hinata grinned, and Kageyama didn’t even have a retort for that. Thankfully, he’s saved by the waiter unloading their bowls of ramen on their table, and they wasted no time in digging into it immediately. They finished their food in minutes, and it’s not nearly enough, so they call for seconds, and a plate of gyoza to be shared between them, and the waiter looked at them with a beat of amusement. That second round of food is finished quickly too, and this time, they’re satiated and satisfied.

There’s a smudge of sauce on Hinata’s cheek, so Kageyama leans forwards and wiped it off for him. Hinata seemed to redden slightly at that, and Kageyama doesn’t know if Hinata is embarrassed because Kageyama’s treating him like a child, or because he was touching his cheek like that. ( _Please let it be the latter._ )

He probably won’t ever know, because the shop began to fill with hungry office workers who stream in noisily, so Kageyama pulled away quickly and called for the bill, shoved a few notes that he’s sure would cover that, and then dragged Hinata out of the shop before anyone could cast them a second glance.

It’s half past six by the time they left, and there’s a purple-pink hue tinted across the sky.

“I should take you home,” Kageyama said. Nevermind that he’s said that twice already, since several hours ago. Hinata either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, because he merely nodded, and led the way along.

Kageyama’s isn’t sure if it was because of him straying off towards the street with the vending machines, but the route that Hinata led him on was significantly different than the one they went by previously. It would make sense, but they end up back at the community park they had passed through in the afternoon.

Neither of them mentioned that fact though, and they meandered around the bricked roads. Hinata was looking wistfully at the swings a pair of children just vacated, so Kageyama commented that he was feeling a bit sluggish from the meal and would like to sit down. Hinata jumped to that opportunity immediately.

“Okay! Let’s sit on the swings.”

Kageyama hadn’t been on a swing set since primary school, and he swung lazily on it, instead watching the way Hinata’s hand gripped the chains of the swing just a little bit tighter, and the way his foot kicked as he talked about some television show that was playing the previous night.

“He must be really stupid though.” Kageyama pointed out after Hinata described a character that betrayed his clan, after believing his clan has betrayed him. “Is he really strong enough to take on everyone like that?”

Hinata shrugged. “I don’t know, but maybe? They need to run the show and stuff.”

Kageyama supposed Hinata made sense. It was a day of strange things, after all.

They lounged there for another half an hour or so, and sometimes Hinata seemed to accidentally budge his swing just a bit closer to Kageyama’s, until they knocked one into another gently. Sometimes it was Kageyama who did that, almost certainly and intentionally. They watched the sun set and the flushed hues melt slowly into a deep blue and by then, Kageyama noticed that Hinata was becoming restless, so he repeated that he needed to get Hinata home again.

Hinata laughed at that assertion and agreed, so they strolled along the path that had taken them to Kageyama’s house the first time, a path that they had travelled too many times with too little thought to it. This time, all Kageyama had were questions, like, would it be ok to hold Hinata’s hand again, and whether they could just be beside one another for as long as they could, and whether that time span could be _forever_.

They walked side by side, Hinata’s shoulder brushing his arm occasionally, and they end up by Kageyama’s gates for the third time that day, and far, far too soon for Kageyama’s liking.

Hinata looked at him, something on the tip of his tongue, but Kageyama cut him off then. “I promised to walk _you_ home, so let’s go.” This time, he reached boldly for Hinata’s hand, and he wants to shut his eyes from feeling the heat rising from his neck, all the way to the tip of his ears. Hinata interlocked their fingers together, and squeezed his hand, grinning up at him.

It felt like the most correct thing, the rightest thing he had ever done in his entire life, so he smiled.

Hinata, if possible at all, seemed to beam even brighter, flashing that megawatt smile of his.

The route to Hinata’s home feels a lot more different when it’s night time. If he strained his eyes, he could count the number of stars in the sky, and as they walked, he felt Hinata studying him as he described stargazing at Hitami Park.

“You’ll like it, for sure! And we can draw constellations with our fingers too! But I’ll need to bring my book, because I never remember what is what.”

“Okay,” Kageyama promised. They’ll go cycling and then swim in that pretty lake, and then camp at night and lie with their backs on the dirty grass floors and count the stars until they fall asleep, holding one another’s hands. “Okay.”

Hinata smiled. “You’ll need to get a bike too, so maybe we should get one rented for you. Or you could buy one, there’s this shop with really great bicycles and parts.”

Kageyama nodded his assent, and they made the left turn at the bus stop with the blue periwinkles that grew nearby. They passed the house with the green roof, and Kageyama squeezed Hinata’s hand a little bit tighter, because too soon, this was all too soon. He’s not ready to say goodbye just yet, even if he were to see Hinata in school again tomorrow, and every day for the rest of his school life, because there was something about the air between them today that made everything feel safe and necessary and important.

Hinata’s a lot quieter, and Kageyama chalked it up to his exhaustion from wandering around and talking non-stop for a good half of the day, and they passed the street with the vending machines, and the sweet shop which had long closed for the day.

“We’re here.” Hinata said, looking up at his house. “Did I tell you that my room is right there?” He pointed at the top right-most window, and Kageyama imagined Hinata sitting inside, maybe doing his homework, or working on his laptop. “Right, so...”

“Yeah…”

Kageyama wonders if that was that, and wonders if Hinata would actually offer to walk him home again. It’s past nine, and as they said, all things came to an end. Kageyama just wanted this one thing to last a little bit longer.

“Hinata, I-“

“Shouyou!” Startled, they released their hands immediately as a woman, whom Kageyama supposed was Hinata’s mother, came out of the house. “Kageyama-kun,” She greeted, and Hinata’s little sister popped out from behind her.

“Nii-chan! Are you finally back from your date?”

Kageyama and Hinata both blushed deeply, matching shades of red. Hinata spoke first. “It’s not a date, Natsu, what are you talking about, ahahaha. It’s only a date if we kiss, right?”

“So kiss him, Nii-chan!” Kageyama wanted to sink into the ground. He did wonder what it would be like to kiss Hinata though, but those were definitely not the kind of thoughts he wanted to visit here, not now, or ever. Or at least, not in front of Hinata’s family.

“Natsu!” Hinata’s mother scolded, before turning to Kageyama again, “I’ve seen you and Shouyou walk past twice already. Do you want to come in for some tea?”

The warm blush on Kageyama’s face seemed to grow even stronger, and he shook his head. “Ah, no, I’m sorry! Sorry for the imposition, I’ll return Hinata to you now, so good night! ” He doesn’t ask how or why Hinata’s mother recognised him, and instead, bowing low, he ran for his home, heart hammering in his chest.

Wait, so dating would mean kissing, then?


End file.
